Indulge me, won’t you. We will start with the good.
The Costumes
Holy shit do I ever just want to fucking feel this movie. The FABRICS! everything is floaty and gauzy and it has that sense of Joe Wright “lived in-ness” where it feels viscerally like the characters exist in this world. I am not a historical costuming expert but I loved that this movie had a look that was different from other films set in a similar era. There was a sense of Style to them that I appreciated, and between this and King by FatM, I predict that floaty capes and dresses are going to have their fashion moment. Everything Haley Bennet wears is stunning, and I love especially that they don’t shy away from showing her size. She isn’t a stick thin model and they don’t try to fake you into believing she is, rather the costumes highlight her beauty. Namely, her eyes. Haley Bennet has the kind of eyes that seem strikingly green when she wears green, and blue when she wears blue (I noticed because I do as well). I think it was a good costuming choice to stick to this colour scheme.
The Cinematography
Look at this point it is no surprise that Joe Wright makes a beautiful movie, but Lord, can’t we have more movies like this? I can’t think of any other movie makers who have such good texture to their films. Like there is so much detail, a sort of effortless clutter that makes it feel crowded. The look is pure aesthetic. No other filmmaker that I can think of seemingly arranges things to have this kind of beauty in them? There are other styles of film that are effective and good, surely, but I would love to see more of this kind.
The Choreography
I love to see a more lyrical style of dance like the one that is here. It has the elegance of ballet, and perfectly suits the flowy nature of the costumes and the film in general. More contemporary styles like you can see in the Greatest Showman are more popular today, I think, but if they ever produce that Bridgerton musical they need to take a page from this movie because the choreography was perfectly suited to the aesthetic in the rest of the film.
Spoilers below the cut
The Music
Good things about the music first. In a Taylor Swift interview, she described Aaron Dessner as having a kind of self-deprecating, rough and tumble, underdog type style. It shows in these lyrics. I can clearly see a vision of some kind of Cyrano, the one that Dessner identifies with. The orchestrations are hit or miss for me. Some songs, like “I need more” are absolute bangers, while others leave something to be desired. Where I think the music suffers is in a lack of understanding of musical structure.
I could write a whole essay about this idea alone but basically, tightly written musicals have your original song ideas in act 1, reprises in act 2. The music should help to carry the narrative, we should see change over time as characters grow and change their ideas. They kind of do this! they are almost there! Roxanne has a song that then Christian reprises when they are both first naively in love. Then at the end, Roxane reprises Cyrano’s love song which shows that she actually loved him all along.
But the ideas do not reach full cohesion because the other songs just feel so disjointed. de Guiche has a villain song, which establishes a conflict that then is really resolved in the next 5 minutes. If you are going to give your villain the honour of having a song, at least develop him as a persistent threat earlier in your movie, so that this moment feels like a climax and not just a blip. The songs are beautiful, but they are overall short, and too “pop” like to carry much weight. In musical theatre, weight is usually on the verses not the chorus, because while the chorus provides the central theme, the verses provide the meat of the song. Here the choruses get far too much focus when there is really no point to them. There is potential here it is just not QUITE there.
The Ending
How do you mess up a tragedy? By not showing the tragedy at all. This is my one sticking point in the movie because it was so good in the first bit, then in the last portion it felt rushed. Christian gives his speech that “She must have the choice” and then proceeds to make that choice for her by literally SPRINTING mad cap towards enemy lines! He should not be suicidal! He wants to be loved for himself, and if not Roxane then he can have hope of another! Then, THEN! Rather than show us WHY Cyrano continues the illusion- that is, that he is unwilling to shatter the perfect vision Roxanne had of her husband, it cuts HARD to 3 years later, and Cyrano dies. And le bret isn’t there and the moon thing is cut out but that is really a minor point compared to how stupid this was. What it really drives home is that this movie lacks a strong plot structure because with this ending handled the way that it was, what was the climax? Because everything feels like denouement after de Guiche sends them off to war.
How I would have fixed it.
1) Christian cannot die like he does. Because the ONE thing we know about Christian is that he was raised to be a soldier. Let him be a soldier then. Cyrano and he agree, that Roxanne should have the choice. They both have full intention to tell her, even if Cyrano is reluctant. Then, you have the battle scene, and you can have it play out artistically, like a song, but Christian dies like a soldier. If you want, you can have him take a bullet for Cyrano, because more than co conspirators they are friends.
2) SHOW US ROXANNE YOU COWARDS! Let Roxanne con her way to the front, and let her see her husband. Show us Le Bret urging Cyrano to tell her the truth and show him realizing that now he can never do so, because he cannot rob her of the only thing that makes this passing bearable.
3) THEN rather then a hard cut, you have a montage- Cyrano talks to Roxanne, the things that “Christian” thought about her. If you want, you let him explain some of what Christian truly was to her. A simple soul, perhaps, but kind. She can react to the idea that maybe she never knew him as well as she thought. Have a fucking song here to deal with grief a la “Its quiet uptown”
4) THEN it can be 3 years later. You can keep most of this part the same as it is in the movie, but now we can truly know Roxane’s horror at learning that Cyrano, her friend through all the years, her rock after Christian dies, her LOVE, has been in front of her this entire time, and she for all her cleverness, could not see it. She starts to sing her love song but then it morphs into Cyrano’s, showing that they have been singing two parts of the same song this entire time. Cyrano’s end line “I loved my pride” can stay. - side note on that, Cyrano’s pride being a barrier to love is an idea I wish they had elaborated more on.
In Conclusion
We need more movies like this that are so goddamn beautiful, but let me into the writer’s room before we make them so that I can make sure they end correctly.
